For twenty years did she wait. And when he returned there would be no bright starfish laying down on a golden path to her door. Just the unmistakable sound of rumour. Waiting is what 89-year old Marvellous spends the year 1947 doing, in an isolated Cornish hamlet, although she isn’t sure what she is waiting for. This might seem like a less-than-engaging narrative device, but Sarah Winman creates gripping suspense while unfolding Marvellous’s memories, from lonely nights spent “willing her life to change” to the time “Whatshisname” was lured in her direction by a Louis Armstrong song playing on the wireless. Paths cross in unexpected ways in this pacey plot. An unlikely friendship develops at the core of the compelling tale when Marvellous meets a troubled young soldier, Drake. Storytelling rejuvenates Drake: as Marvellous shares stories of her life resonating with the transcendent power of love, Drake learns how to marvel at life again, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. “Everyone had a limit,” writes Winman, engrossingly showing characters pushed past their breaking point. The novel’s surprising denouement is also well worth the wait. . A glorious poem of a novel - a story to read slowly and to marvel at the beauty of it -- Rosamund Lupton, author of SISTER In making a case for the beauty in the everyday, Winman takes art out of the gallery and makes it accessible to her characters. I can see this book not being to everyone's tastes as it is very quirky but I think if readers give it a chance I think by the end of the story they will have fallen ever so slightly for the wonderfully different Marvellous Ways.

Further Reading: As well as When God Was A Rabbit, we recommend The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis and/or Nine Days by Toni Jordan if you enjoy immersing in some engaging characters.Winman has acted in theatre, film and television. How do you think this experience has affected the way she tells a story?

I write books that … I want people to still believe in the goodness of others, and the freedom that is out there by crossing the Channel," she says. So yes, that is my case for joy – that joy is very necessary. And joy is a very triumphant place to be – it's often dismissed, but it's very powerful. And so is empathy, incredibly powerful." Unconventional men and families As was Sarah Waters, whose novels set in Victorian society feature lesbian lead characters, much like Still Life. "The Night Watch I would say is my favourite," says Winman.

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The accompaniments to their melody and harmony are found in other people who are seeking their purpose and find it through their connections with each other. And at the center of it all, the old woman’s melody sings true and holds the life notes of everyone together until they are able to follow their own melody. Drake’s story is also told as a journey to Cornwall, his experiences in war and how he spends time in London adapting to civvie life before he sets off and ends up in the creek. Wartime London is evoked poignantly too but it’s when the journey starts to that creek when Drake is about to discover a world of stories, hope and salvation. A Year of Marvellous Ways is a book about Marvellous Ways, a ninety-year-old woman who has lived alone in a remote creek all her life and is now waiting for something and Freddy Drake, a young soldier left reeling by the war who is on a journey to deliver a letter, as their paths cross. There is horror and heartbreak, life and death, love and loss, war and peace, the healing of sharing and telling your story, the importance of the sea and nature, and the importance of being needed in this novel. Marvellous is coming to the end of her life, Drake must learn to go on and be at peace. The ordinary mingles with the magical, often in dreams and sometimes in the daily living. live Ground-level clashes intensify as Israeli military confirms deadly strikes on Gaza refugee camp

parmağıyla avucunun içinde bir alan çizerek, Kalbinin büyüklüğü bu kadar, dedi Missy. Yeteri kadar sev, Freddy. There are a host of other characters who come in and out of the lives of these three main characters, all of whom are wounded or lost in some way. Dayanabileceğin kadar. Canını yakmaya başlarsa fazla seviyorsun demektir. Sadece dayanabileceğin kadar. Bir avuçtan fazla olan her şey başını derde sokar. Anladın mı?” An ode to life with all the mystical and magical ways it has of sweeping you off one course and onto another, into another’s life and when those lives become linked and mingle and bring forth new life – and this is how life goes on. This story is filled with life: the beginnings and the ends, the highs and the lows, and all the somethings and someones in between that give life meaning. Winman says she'd actually been thinking about Brexit, and how it illuminated what she calls a "disdain for otherness".Marvellous has discovered what it is that she has been waiting for all this time. Prior to Drake’s appearance she has been busily cleaning out the old boathouse where she can tend to Drake. There are other characters that come into Drake and Marvellous’ lives as well – a woman named Peace, one of the babies that Marvellous delivered into the world. Together, these three navigate their final days (Marvellous) and their beginning days (Drake and Peace) together. So if I look at Tin Man and then Still Life, that has been very much about working class and opportunity and art and its transformative power." What books does she turn to for inspiration? Are you a valuing the journey person, or all about the destination? If it's the former, how important is the style of the journey for you?